February 03, 2011

I came across this at Byzantium's Shores. Jaquandor picked it up from someone else and passed it on, so I shall do the same. It's called, "Ogle my shelves!" (I don't know how mandatory the exclamation point is). Forthwith, to follow, numerous pictures of my bookshelves, close up. No hiding here; it's all out in plain view, embarrassing or not. Feel free to peruse. If you'd like a closer look, click on a pic to see it larger at Flickr.

Here is our bookshelf. Pat and I are book buyers. We both love books, and would rather own them than borrow them, great resource though the local library is. Pat is also, however, a rather organized person, who keeps a fine house. Left unchecked our book obsession would easily lead to a house with every horizontal surface piled high with reading material. So we check...and balance. We keep one set of bookshelves, and we allow ourselves to keep only the books that will fit on it. Once a year we hold a garage sale, and we thin out our books rather mercilessly each time, in order to preserve space on the shelf for valuable personal favourites, and new acquisitions.

Below is the bookshelf in its entirety. If it ain't on that, or stacked on a bedside table, it's in a box in the crawl space, ready to be sold off cheap at the next yard sale.

Mostly big books below: hardcovers and trade paperbacks. You can see the notable presence of at least 9 volumes by Guy Kay here. In fact, the only one of his novels missing here is A Song For Arbonne, which, for some reason that escapes me right now, I do not seem to have in hardcover. Also, I see a book I borrowed from Brent and never gave back. And the DaVinci Code, that's kinda embarrassing.

The cats are not mine.

Look, it's a scene from Tigana (another Kay novel) immortalized in paint. If you look closely you can see the red hair, that identifies this as Catriana. The hands are out of frame through the window, so you cannot see the single matching glove. This was painted by a friend and sent to me as part of a Secret Santa gift exchange.

Also, there's some books that Pat read.

Bottom shelf is populated by Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side, and Bloom County, oh and a whole bunch of high school yearbooks.

Below are some of the books I've owned the longest, including Gulliver's Travels. I can't find a date in it, so I'm not sure exactly when this edition was published, but it was given to my Father on the occasion of his eighth birthday, in 1945. He gave it to me when I was studying it in University. Also, a King James Bible, presented to my Father, by my Mother, in 1959. They passed it on to me in 1975. I've read most of it. (I kinda skimmed the begets).

The big, black thing isn't a book. It's a speaker.

Wow! That's a few National Geographics. They span January, 1988, to April, 2001. The bottom shelf is all photo albums.

Here's the start of the paperbacks. The corner section of the bookshelf used to be all knick-knacks and pretties, but you can see it has been somewhat taken over. You can just see the Twilight books sticking out of there. They'll be in the next garage sale for sure. Also, a couple of my antique cameras are on display there.

A Daily Mail Tobacco tin. And a piece of wood off an old crate of HighLiner Jumbo Fillets. Oh, and some books.

Ooh, the Mythic Tarot (insert spooky dramatic music here). Also, Kurt Vonnegut, who is another one of my favourite authors. And, tucked in the back there, yeah, Harry Potter.

But, what, you may ask, about the bottom section of the shelves? What's hidden behind closed doors, you might well demand. Oh, that's not books.

And didn't I see a bunch of stuff on top of the shelves, you ask? Well, here are my Sinners' Brier Mugs.... Yeah, don't ask. The explanation would be long, and not really all that interesting.